


Safety

by Breathable_Air



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-29
Updated: 2013-07-09
Packaged: 2017-12-09 21:46:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/778326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Breathable_Air/pseuds/Breathable_Air
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John didn't feel gone; it just felt like an elaborate tale.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i got a random urge to sadstuck one day so this is what happened. also because of a shipping war I've got going on internally. i just have a lot of feelingsss

Karkat woke up quickly when he felt the bed shift only to find Dave Strider laying next to him. “Its been bugging me all night and I can’t sleep” Dave stated vaguely.  
“What has?” Karkat asked in return.  
“Why did you chose him over me. We would have been great as a threesome, even. That is if I couldn’t have you to myself.” Karkat chuckled when he said threesome and then contemplated a serious response.  
“I love him. He helped me change for the better. Or maybe I changed for him because he makes me better.”  
“I was the only one who loved you for years. We were facing everything together and you said you’d always love me.”  
“I love you in a different way, Dave. I don’t want to do the things I do with John, with you.”  
“Why not? Am I that unappealing to you?”  
“No you’re attractive and I love you, but I don’t want to mislead you. The only one I love that way is john.”  
“karkat its time, you know”  
“What?  
Light began filtering into the room making it immensely bright with even the smallest drop of sunlight for some reason and daves face became clearer. It was red and it looked tired and his hair looked unkempt and his shades were on the top of his head to reveal his red eyes that weren’t so lively anymore and everything about him just seemed off. His lips were chapped and his face more defined with a bit of scruff. he took a deep breath as if this was all lugubrious.  
“Are you okay?” Karkat inquired.  
“It’s just hard knowing how you...”  
“how I what?”  
The light shone in his eyes and he took a look around the unfamiliar setting of an entirely white room. He froze for a moment as chills ran through his spine and sent his mind into overdrive. “Where are we? What’s going on? Why...” He sat up in the bed to find that he wasn’t in his own clothes and that he had one of those annoyingly tight hospital bracelets on. His glasses were on the table next to the prison type bed which were both nailed to the floor.  
“Three years and you still tell me the same thing every morning.”  
Shocked, Karkat realized that Dave knew what was going on. And that he was being quite cryptic. “Tell me what’s happening right now.” He demanded, leaving no room for the courtesies of patience.  
Dave frowned, “I never get a simple hello, do I?” he sat up in bed and took a shaky breath before beginning. “Karkat, three years ago you and john had finally started dating after much trouble from john about how he wasn’t a homosexual. Well in his classes there were some pretty unfriendly people that were completely against your “abomination” of a relationship. Not only were they against gay people, but you had come across them once and really embarrassed them. Hurting someone you cared about was an easy way to get back at you. They started bullying him. Simple things first, like pushing him in the hallway or dumping his backpack, but John stayed strong and didn’t shows signs of caring much. They took it up a notch and found him regularly after school to physically abuse him. If he managed to get away one time theyd catch him the next and make it all triple the pain. He showed signs of pain only during the process and said nothing of it afterwards. I guess he was finally with the person he loved and wasn’t going to let anything get in the way. His pain wasn’t reaching you and they knew that so again they had to bring it up a notch. John was crying when he came to me to ask for help because that day was the first day they raped him and it was getting overwhelming. I offered to go with him after school, but he said he was going to man up and take care of it himself.I should’ve insisted.  
“I got to his house after school before him and found a bunch of razors in the trash and an empty pill bottle on the ground and I knew he was thinking about it. Killing himself. There was a note saying how much he loved everyone and that he was sorry his existence was such a disappointment. I planned to talk to him about all of it when he got home. that was the last time I thought he’d come home. Later that night I got a call from the police asking about my relation to John and I got really worried that he had died. And my premonition was right. I couldn’t believe it for a while and I didn’t really want to. When I called you, you thought you were getting pranked and that just made it harder to have to convince someone of the cold hard reality. When you finally believed me you started sobbing and just broke down swearing and chucking things and you broke your room up pretty good. You punched the wall a lot and broke your hand and got blood everywhere. You started cutting and created a years worth of scars in one night. You stopped eating or moving or interacting after that and just sat in your room for a week and a half before the building manager unlocked the door and called 9-1-1. They put you here and started giving you the care you needed and you’ve been here for three years starting tomorrow. I always visit but I can’t always tell you the story or get to come inside your room. Some days all you do is freak out and punch the padded walls because you have the feelings and you don’t know why. You just don’t remember anything after you picked up the phone.” Daves shades had managed to slide into place but the tears leaking from underneath them were undeniable and so were the cracks in his voice while he was speaking. That’s what was off. He wasn’t wearing a broken record, he was one.


	2. Chapter 2

Karkat didn’t move for a second. For a minute. He felt empty inside. A part of him was missing and it was so frustrating. His hair was getting long and kept flopping into his eyes and pissing him off, but he let it hang there because the blinding white of the room was harsh in his eyes. His throat kept closing up and trying to suffocate him. He didn’t oppose to it. The bed creaked and he could feel every spring inside of it. This place sucked and he just wanted out. Dave put a hand on his shoulder and that seemed to open a passage in his throat to breath again. He flopped back into the bed. Nothing felt real. John didn’t feel gone; it just felt like an elaborate tale. “Dave.”  
“Yeah?”  
“Leave.”  
Dave stared at him incredulously. Each time he told him the story he got a different reaction. sometimes he would punch him, sometimes he would cry in his chest, and sometimes they even wound up making out. Dave couldn’t help but feel extremely guilty about the make out sessions but the psychiatrists that monitored him said that it was actually the most effective way for him to accept reality because he stayed lucid the longest. He had never gotten this response though.  
“What?” Dave asked after a moment.  
“I know that you love me and it feels wrong to have you sitting on my bed with me when I have john.”  
Did he not hear that whole thing about John dying? “John isn’t alive anymore.” He hated having to practically force feed him the information, but he hated it more when Karkat hid from the truth.  
Karkat cringed at the words Dave threw at him. Didn’t he know that it hurt? He covered his eyes with the inside of his elbow and took a deep breath, trying to avoid bursting into tears. He just wanted John to be the one on the bed instead of Dave. He wanted to kiss him and he wanted to feel his bottom lip quiver in between his own. And if he couldn’t have John he just didn’t want anyone in his place.  
“Karkat, you’ve been doing better recently if you can just try to accept it they might let you go soon. They think in another week or so you’ll be ready.”  
A world without John? A life inside a white room? This was all too fucked up. He took yet another deep breath and suddenly lips were on his. They were chapped and rough and sort of salty from who knows what. He turned his head to the side immediately, but the pair of lips pursued his own so he swung his arm from off of his eyes at the others head knocking his aviators off.  
“What the fuck Dave?!” He screamed and finally the tears were sliding down his red cheeks. He glared daggers at Dave through his puffy eyes.  
“When we kiss it keeps your mind here.” Dave stated.  
Karkat rolled his eyes. “I swear if this is all some sort of plan to get me to make out with you-”  
Dave pressed his lips and chest to Karkat and this time there was no fight to get away. At least not physically, the tears continued flowing and he seemed uncomfortable and kind of disgusted. At Dave yes, but mostly at himself.  
The first minute was only repetitive chaste kisses, then Dave began moving his lips more, but karkat was uncooperative. Finally he pulled away and sighed. “Karkat, it only helps when you kiss back in fact you’re normally the one who kisses me first.” Karkat scrunched his face before grabbing Dave’s shirt to pull him in for a kiss. It started out rough as Karkat bit his bottom lip, but slowly he became gentle and went from face mashing to finally gliding his tongue across the previously bitten bottom lip to ask permission for entrance. Dave hesitated he had always wanted this, but never had it. He thought of John and how upset he would be to find his best bro and his boyfriend making out.  
He swallowed hard then opened his mouth because he wanted Karkat out of this room so badly. Karkat’s tongue was quickly inside Dave’s mouth. Dave felt the hastiness in the spasm of muscle in his tongue as it flicked back and forth and the desperation he breathed into his mouth and none of it increased his mental stability. Dave pushed Karkat back by the shoulders. He had this look of shame on his face. He looked down at the stupid white floor and kicked the padded bed leg in defeat. He crumpled and shivered on the ground. Dave crouched down and hugged the ball tight to his chest. The repeated word incoherent to most was crystal clear to Dave. Why?  
Some days Karkat asked questions and some days he asked one. No matter what the answer was he always returned with but I loved him. But love wasn’t enough safety.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't think I'd add the second half.

**Author's Note:**

> Constructive criticism is highly encouraged! (because it most definitely needs work...)


End file.
